Eight Lectures on India

by Halford John Mackinder

|Repeat Map No. 3.| |41.
Madras from the Sea.| |42.
The High Court, Madras.| |43.
St. Mary’s Church, Madras.| |44.
The Law College, Madras.| |45.
Y.M.C.A. Building, Madras.| Northward of the group of temple cities, and eastward of the Nilgiris and of the plateau country of Mysore, on the low coastal plain is the great city of Madras, four hundred miles from our landing place at Tuticorin. Like the other seaports of modern India, Madras has grown from the smallest beginning within the European period. Its nucleus was Fort St. George, built to shelter the office and warehouse of the East India Company, in the time when Charles I. was king of England. To-day Madras has half a million people, and magnificent buildings in the European style. We have here a view looking northeastward over a corner of Fort St. George, and across the public grounds, to the High Court of Justice, whose lofty tower serves the purpose of a lighthouse for ships approaching the port. To the right of the High Court in the distance are the buildings round the harbour. Next we have St. Mary’s Church, standing within Fort St. George, the oldest British church in India, though the present structure was erected to replace an earlier church. And here we have the Law College, which stands beside the High Court, and close to it the building of the Young Men’s Christian Association. There are many Christians in southern India among the natives, indeed more than in any other part of the Indian Empire, although even here they are but a small minority. One Christian community on the Malabar coast is of the Nestorian sect, who came to India many centuries before the sea route was opened round the Cape.

|46.
Madras Bank.| |47.
The People’s Park, Madras.| |48.
Banyan Tree.| |49.
The Same.| Madras has a Corporation much after the European plan, and is a clean, well drained city with many public amenities. Here, for instance, is the electric tramway in front of the Madras Bank. Here we have a view in the People’s Park, with a group of sambur within an enclosure. One of the most remarkable and typical of ornamental trees in India is the banyan, with drooping branches, whose suckers take root when reach the ground, giving the effect of a grove, though in fact but a single tree.

|50.
Banyan Avenue.| Here is a banyan tree seen from without and from within, and here a banyan avenue at Madras.

|51.
Grain Sellers, Madras.| |52.
Men ploughing, Madras.| |53.
Covered Bullock Cart, Madras.| Before leaving Madras, let us look at three scenes of native life. Here are grain sellers, and here, outside the city, are men ploughing. Here we see the typical covered bullock cart.

|54.
Map of India, distinguishing Madras, Mysore, Cochin, and Travancore.| |55.
Coffee Planters, Coorg.| Lastly, let us consider the map, and learn what part of India is ruled from Madras and Ootacamund. We have in the first place, coloured red, the territory of the Presidency of Madras, which is ruled directly by the Governor and his Council. In purple are shown the important native state of Mysore, separated from both coasts by British territory, and the two little native states of Travancore and Cochin along the Malabar Coast southward to Cape Comorin. Mysore is directly under the general supervision of the Government of India, but Travancore and Cochin are under that of the Government of Madras. Beside Mysore is the diminutive territory of Coorg, no larger than the County of Essex, in England. But Coorg has a certain importance for the growth of coffee. Here we have a group of native coffee planters.

|Repeat Map No. 3.| Then we look again at the map in which the lowlands were shown green and the uplands brown. We see the plain from Tuticorin to Madras city. We see the southern end of the Deccan plateau, with the state of Mysore upon it, and the Nilgiri hills at its extremity. We have the lowland passage of Coimbatore, to which we referred in describing Ootacamund, and south of this afresh the hills extending to Cape Comorin. The native states of Cochin and Travancore are on the westward descent from these southernmost hills. Note again how the railways take advantage of the lowland passages, especially the line from Madras leading westward to the Malabar Coast.

The Cauvery flowing eastward over the plateau is the most considerable river of Southern India. As it descends the Eastern Ghats it makes great falls, and these have been harnessed, as the phrase is, and made to supply power which is carried electrically for nearly a hundred miles to the Kolar goldfield, within the Mysore boundary. The engineer who superintended the construction of this work was a French Canadian officer of the Royal Engineers—interesting evidence of the increasing solidarity of the British Empire.

Bangalore is the chief military station of southern India. It is connected by rail with Madras, but is situated on the plateau within Mysore. From Bangalore the line runs on to Seringapatam on the Cauvery, and to Mysore city beyond. These were the seats of the Muhammadan Sultans, Hyder Ali and Tippu, father and son, who, a generation later than the time when Clive fought at Arcot, held Madras in terror from their highland fastness. The threat to the British position in India was a real one. Hyder Ali leagued himself with the French, with whom we were then at war, but he was defeated under the great Governor-General, Warren Hastings. Tippu, Hyder’s son, was also an ally of the French. He lived into the time of Napoleon, and made his chief attack on British power when the French were in Egypt, but he was defeated and killed. Colonel Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, first rose to notice in this campaign. He was appointed to command “the troops above the Ghats.” After the death of Tippu, the civil administration of Mysore was also assigned to Wellesley, and splendid work he did as civil administrator.

|56.
Southern India, showing rainfall of S.W. Monsoon.| |57.
Pykara Falls, Nilgiri Hills.| |58.
Gairsoppa Falls.| A third map shows you the rainfall which is brought by the west winds of the summer time to the Malabar Coast. These winds strike the Western Ghats and the Nilgiri hills and drench them with superabundant moisture, so that they are thickly forested. At this season magnificent waterfalls leap down the westward ravines and feed torrents which rush in short valleys to the ocean. One of the grandest falls in the world is at Gairsoppa, in the northwestern corner of the state of Mysore.

|59.
Southern India, showing rainfall of N.E. Monsoon.| |60.
Southern India, showing density of Population.| A fourth map indicates the rainfall on the east coast brought by the Northeast Monsoon of the winter season. Finally, a fifth map shows that the population is densest down on the lowlands precisely in those regions, on the east coast and on the west, which are best supplied with moisture. Throughout India the supply of water for agricultural purposes is the key to the prosperity of the country, for everywhere there is heat enough for luxuriant vegetation. It is only drought which is in places the cause of sterility. With all its vast population there are none the less great spaces in India very sparsely peopled. Once more let us remember that India is rather a continent than merely a country.